Free Republic

Scott Pelley, a veteran of 37 years at CBS, denounced Editor-in-chief Bari Weiss for "interfering with my freedom to report the news the way I see fit. Her demand that I include both sides of contentious issues broke faith with the essential DNA of the '60 Minutes' program. For decades we were routinely allowed to determine what we reported rather than be compelled to give any attention to ideas or information we thought was out-of-line with our version of the truth." "For my candor, I got fired by '60 Minutes' executive producer Nick Bilton," Pelley complained. "I have to say...

UPDATE: Scott Pelley was terminated from “60 Minutes” Tuesday evening, hours after the longtime correspondent met with CBS News leadership to discuss Monday’s clash. “Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear,” “60 Minutes” executive producer Bilton wrote in a letter sent to Pelley. “And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated effective immediately.” Bilton then broke the news of Pelley’s exit with the “60 Minutes” team, voicing his “unyielding support” for the remaining employees. Read his full message...

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss pulled out of a speaking engagement at UCLA due to security concerns. “We always follow our security team’s guidance. This situation is no different,” a CBS News spokesperson told Fox News Digital. The lecture honors the memory of slain Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and beheaded by Pakistani jihadist terrorists in 2002. “We are working with the university to reschedule for a different date,” the network spokesperson added. Steve Lurie, UCLA’s Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Safety Officer, told Fox News Digital the university had a “comprehensive security plan” in preparation for Weiss’...

CBS News’ 60 Minutes is about to lose another high-profile star under the chaotic reign of the network’s editor in chief Bari Weiss following the shock exit of Anderson Cooper, according to a report. CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote in his Reliable Sources newsletter that “at least one other correspondent” is on the way out after it was reported Cooper would not be renewing his contract after becoming disillusioned with the direction of the now Donald Trump–friendly CBS News under Weiss. (snip) The official reason Cooper gave for not renewing his contract at CBS News was to spend more time with...

About a quarter of “CBS Evening News” staffers eligible for buyouts have chosen the option ahead of impending layoffs under editor in chief Bari Weiss, The Post has learned. Eleven staffers opted for buyouts, which were only offered to non-unionized employees, a source with knowledge of the matter said Tuesday. They include at least six producers out of the show’s total of roughly 20, according to another source, who added: “Seems like people are jumping ship.” “It’s a lot of people,” a CBS insider said. The “Evening News” has over 40 non-unionized staffers, a source said. A CBS News rep...

“Let’s get down to business: We’ll start the bidding for Warner Bros at $5. Do I hear $5?” “...so many A-listers — and by A-listers, I mean people who are on ‘A list’ that has been heavily redacted..." "The Golden Globe for best editing goes to… the Justice Department!” “the award for most editing goes to CBS News. Yes. CBS news: America’s newest place to see B.S. news.” Glaser singled out George Clooney for a very specific inquiry. “I’ve always wanted to ask you something, and I know this is unprofessional, but I may never get the chance again, so...

Since taking the helm at CBS News, Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss has shown no fear, and her response to Hollywood leftist darling George Clooney's attack on her is truly...magnifique. It all started after the 64-year-old actor took a swipe at Weiss' leadership, of course, using broad claims, lacking any detail, about Weiss. The comments came after she pulled a 60 Minutes piece about the alleged treatment of illegal aliens in a CECOT prison in El Salvador. She later explained the reason was that it wasn’t ready, RedState reported. Statement from CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss: "My job is to make sure...

In 1995, 60 Minutes made a decision that nearly destroyed the program. Producers killed an interview with Jeffrey Wigand, a tobacco industry whistleblower who had evidence that cigarette companies knew their products were addictive and carcinogenic. CBS’s lawyers were worried about a potential lawsuit, so the interview got shelved. The story eventually came out anyway, the lawyers’ fears proved overblown, and 60 Minutes spent years trying to rebuild its credibility. The whole debacle became the basis for The Insider, a 1999 film starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino that portrayed CBS executives as cowards who caved to corporate pressure at...

We’ve reported extensively on the shenanigans at CBS News, the network that was forced to fork over $16 million in July to settle Trump’s lawsuit concerning their deceptive editing of a Kamala Harris interview a month before the 2024 presidential election. Much drama ensued at the outlet as veteran diehards continued to insist that resisting Trump and spewing anti-American rhetoric was part of their job description. Give credit, however, to David Ellison, Chairman and CEO of Paramount (Skydance Corporation), who brought on independent journalist, former NY Times opinion editor, and nowadays free thinker Bari Weiss to oversee the hopelessly biased...

Christopher Hohn, a British billionaire and hedge fund manager, is cutting off funding to left-wing groups and causes after a report by Americans for Public Trust (APT). APT said in its report that the groups that received funding from the Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), which lists Hohn as its founder and chair of board, "pushed for nothing less than the complete radicalization of the U.S. political landscape." CIFF, which has a reported $6 billion endowment, is "heavily funded by Hohn’s nearly $60 billion activist hedge fund," according to APT. "For far too long, Christopher Hohn, and other foreign billionaires...

If you’re old enough to have admired CBS in its heyday, watching its decline has been painful.Decades ago, it was dubbed the Tiffany Network – home of the great journalist Walter Cronkite (“the most trusted man in America”), and innovator of the top-flight magazine program, 60 Minutes.Even outside its news division, the network was a place where the variety-show host Ed Sullivan could break down racial exclusion by inviting outstanding Black entertainers to his Sunday night program; that was controversial in an era of intense racial turmoil. The CBS news department had some of the best journalists in the nation,...

There is a concerted effort underway lately by so-called dissident or “anti-woke” liberals to police speech on the right, declaring certain opinions or ideas taboo, unworthy of a platform, beyond the pale of acceptable discourse. Although couched in the language of morality and principles, this effort isn’t really about fending off rising right-wing racism and antisemitism, much less saving western civilization. It’s about power. Over the past decade, the media landscape has been destroyed. Through its own corruption and duplicity, the corporate press has lost credibility and influence — to the tremendous benefit of conservative voices and outlets. But this...

A former FBI informant pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying about a $10 million bribe that a Ukrainian businessman paid to then-vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter to “protect” his firm from a looming corruption investigation. Alexander Smirnov, 43, entered into a plea agreement with special counsel David Weiss and confessed to having created “a false and fictitious record” as part of a multi-year federal probe into the Bidens. The falsehoods included the bribery allegation, which was memorialized in an FBI FD-1023 form in 2020 and released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last year, and other aspects of...

A fired Colorado school district official was found dead Wednesday amid allegations he was involved in possessing "child sexual assault material," authorities told Crisis in the Classroom (CITC) on Thursday. David Weiss was fired as chief of schools for Jeffco Public Schools last month. The Washington County Sheriff's Office in Maryland notified the Jefferson County, Colorado Sheriff's Office on Wednesday it was conducting a death investigation into Weiss, the Colorado office said. Weiss was in Maryland with family to celebrate the holidays at the time of his death, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. The Washington County Sheriff's Office...

Kamala Harris has strong ties to U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves and his activist wife. Which is why a Harris Department of Justice could be more dangerous than Biden's DOJ. Democrats ended their four-day convention on Thursday with a vacuous speech by the party’s installed candidate, Kamala Harris. Her short stint on the main stage made the regime media, which has blessed her with 84 percent positive news coverage since the Pelosi coup according to one analysis, drunk with joy. Harris, like the roster of speakers before her, spent most of the speech demonizing her general...

Fox News is rejecting pressure from the White House to retract stories about alleged Biden family corruption in the aftermath of the FBI’s arrest of a former informant. In a letter from Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House, the regime demanded that the conservative news network take down its reporting about Alexander Smirnov’s allegations that then-Vice President Joe Biden was involved in a foreign bribery scheme with Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings which employed his son Hunter in a highly paid position despite his lack of industry experience. Smirnov, the source identified in the FD-1023 document that has...

Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant indicted for lying about President Joe Biden’s family and their alleged dealings in Ukraine, has been re-arrested in Nevada. Though prosecutors fought to keep him behind bars, Smirnov was released by Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts in Nevada on Tuesday with several conditions, including GPS monitoring and the surrender of his two passports. Prosecutors asked the Nevada judge to delay his release, but the judge declined and Smirnov was allowed to walk out. Now, Smirnov’s defense lawyers say their client was re-arrested Thursday on a new warrant for the exact same charges – this time...

The informant accused of fabricating a story about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden taking $5 million each in bribes allegedly had high-level Russian intelligence contacts, according to newly filed court documents. In the filing, Special Counsel David Weiss reveals that after his arrest last week, Alexander Smirnov told the FBI "that officials with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story" about Hunter Biden. Prosecutors argued in their filing Smirnov should be held pending trial, with Weiss saying that Smirnov's claims he has active contacts with "multiple foreign intelligence agencies" and had planned to leave the U.S....

One of the most disturbing scandals of the Hunter Biden saga is the imprisonment without trial of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov. The Ukrainian-born Israeli-American, who once told his FBI handler about Ukrainian claims of a $10 million bribe to the Bidens, has been languishing in a Los Angeles prison for nine months on charges that he lied to the FBI. Last week, federal prosecutors slapped new tax-evasion charges on Smirnov, 43, which suggests they know their original indictment is too weak for a jury to convict him when he faces trial beginning Jan. 8. Smirnov was one of the...

Three days ago, Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment against Donald Trump. That's highly significant for a reason. It demolishes the veneer of impartiality and destroys something else. Three years ago, I wrote an article about how US Attorney David Weiss tipped the election in favor of Joe Biden by burying the Hunter Biden tax and laptop scandals. Weiss was praised for his restraint in not indicting the younger Biden. Last summer, federal officials in Delaware investigating Hunter Biden faced a dilemma. The probe had reached a point where prosecutors could have sought search warrants and issued a flurry of...